Predicting the Future Is Easy… Believing It Is Hard

About 10 minutes into his presentation, he shared what I believe might be the biggest idea of the conference so far…

“Predicting the future is easy… believing it is hard.”

And I think these nine words elegantly summarize what Harry Dent and Neil Howe have been saying for more than three decades.

Cycles are real.

History does repeat itself.

If you want to profit in this era of disruption, the hardest part is believing change is coming (and then taking the appropriate actions).

Kevin Ashton went on to say this as well…

“Whenever I’ve made mistakes in predicting the future, it’s because I wasn’t willing to believe what the data suggested.”

And as Harry has said so many times… people don’t like booms and busts.

They can’t see exponential (and cyclical) change. And they don’t want to believe that something like a major market crash could really be right around the corner.

It’s just human nature.

Which is why we have to trust the data, and the conclusions we make from that data, even if that data shows something that might sound ridiculous.

Like some of the predictions Kevin Ashton made…

You will own a self driving car by 2030.

When Kevin made this prediction several years ago, it was laughed at. Now, it seems like people wonder why they aren’t going to get it faster.

Your great-grandchildren will have a triple-digit life expectancy.

Consider this: In 1800, the global life expectancy was 32 years old. And depending on how old you are right now, your grandchildren (or great grandchildren) will live to more than 100 years.

We will discover extraterrestrial life in this century.

This one blew me away. In the 60s, the scientific consensus was that we are most certainly alone in this universe. Now, the scientific community is almost unanimous in believing the universe is ripe with conditions for other life.

Now, Kevin isn’t predicting we’re gonna have aliens hovering above the White House a la Independence Day… but likely that we’ll find some kind of microbial organism via a telescope, or atmospheric samples of neighboring planets.

Within the next 100 years, possibly in our lifetimes, a human being will be born on another planet (or at least not on this planet).

And this moment will be as significant as the day our ancestors stepped off the African plains into Asia and we became an inter-continental species.

Which brings up some interesting issues! Does that mean that human is an alien? Would they even want to come visit their home planet? And would they even be welcome?

But maybe his most incredible prediction…

Soon, most computers will power themselves.

Now, you’ve probably heard of Moore’s Law… which roughly says that computer power will double every 18 months to 2 years.

But you probably haven’t heard of Koomey’s Law… which roughly states the amount of energy required to make a computation will half every 18 months.

Which means, according to Kevin, we will soon see a day where batteries don’t EVER need to be replaced or recharged.

In fact, it’s already happening.

Now, I won’t be able to do this part justice in this post… which is why you should click here and get your copy of the 2018 Irrational Economic Summit Livestream and digital replay kit so you can watch it….

But Kevin is one of the leading experts in the world about radio frequency identification (RFID) chips… which, if you don’t know, sends ONE radio frequency in ONE direction.

Which is how things like your hotel room key opens those doors… yet don’t need any kind of power source to do it.

And as we move into the future of the Internet of Things… more and more devices will be connected and constantly sending data.

Well, if you’ve ever asked yourself, “How the hell are all of these devices going to get powered?”

The answer? They won’t need any external powersource. They’ll power themselves.

A big, massive, world changing idea indeed.

Today’s Schedule

This morning, at 7:45 AM CT, we had a special bonus section called Options 101 with Adam O’Dell… who is a brilliant investor here on our team who has helped our members make some extraordinary gains with his services, like Cycle 9 Alert.

At 8:30 AM CT, Richard Smith, founder of TradeSmith, showed how he’s helping regular investors get a massive competitive advantage by using his TradeStops software.

And he finished his presentation with one of his best stock ideas for 2018.

Be sure to click here and sign up for the Irrational Economic SummitLivestream and replay kit to find out what it was.

At 9:20 AM CT… Andrew Swan talked about how is company Likefolio uses social media data to predict stock prices.

Rodney Johnson took the stage at 10 AM CT, and gave a killer presentation on the cannabis industry. (There will be more on this in a future post.)

And Elliot Gue will wrap up the morning by discussing the coming oil shock (which will be at 11:10 AM CT)… and what will sure to be an incredible presentation from Lacy Hunt (at 11:50 AM CT).

Make sure to check your inbox later today! I’ll have more big ideas coming your way.

Investing is no longer a set-it-and-forget-it affair. If you’re still using that outdated approach in today’s irrational markets, you’re setting yourself up for massive losses and a difficult retirement. There’s a much… Read More>>